Parked at the TH on Saturday evening and hiked 1.5 miles up Bierstadt trail and pitched my tent. Summited Bierstadt the next morning at 8:35am the next morning before the crowd showed up. This was my first 14er and it was a very windy and cold summit.

A first. I am from Ohio, have lived in Denver, South, for about a year. Girlfriend and I decided to begin after much encouragement from her. We went and made it up and back. Pretty good accomplishment, for me. Out of shape within reason and have smoked a pack-a-day since turning 20 y.o. Definitely reconsidering the wicked habit. As known, Mt. Bierstadt is very popular and for very good reasons. Beautiful. The hike down and out was the roughest for me, especially the last bit with the wooden bridges across the swamp-marsh. I was just done and ready to be not walking anymore. I look forward to the next time.

Meetup.com Independence Day hike. This was my 5th time on Bierstadt. The place was a madhouse, as expected. Full parking lots and tons of hikers, but that's all right. The weather was good, a little windy at times, but sunny. There were a few slower hikers in the group, and one turned back before the summit. This was the 1st 14er of 3 in our group.

Woke up around 4am and made it to Evans trailhead around 6am. Met a hiker at the lot and we decided to hike together. We hit the trail at 6:30am, made it through the swampy areas easily and over the still frozen snow due to our early start. It was slow going since this was my 2nd 14er and it was her first. We made the summit at 9:45am and got back to the car at noon before a storm rolled our way. Great day!

Solo adventure in every version of inclement weather- snow, hail, wind, freezing rain, large hail, thunder, and intermittent white outs. Good fun on the summit ridge and good time given the conditions. Met up with another solo guy and traded beating the path through snow. Only bad part was freezing creek crossing with weak snow banks. Dropped thigh deep, but gaiters actually kept water out of my boots.